THE GHOSTS OF PURLEY HALL

THE GHOSTS OF PURLEY HALL

Miss Emma Elizabeth Thoyts stayed at the hall over 100 years ago and felt a supernatural force.  Miss Thoyts lived in rural splendour at Sulhamstead House, surrounded by acres of parkland.  Sulhamstead House is now the headquarters training centre for the Thames valley Police.

   Writing in 1892, Miss Thoyts complained not only of the feeling of such a force but also of the terrible smell that went with it.   She said `In 1889, I was asked to stay there to be present at a meeting of the Berkshire Archaeological Society.  When shown to my room, I was nearly poisoned by the smell.   It was late,  and I began to undress when a panic urged me that the room was haunted.   It was without rhyme or reason,  but so positive that although I only had a vague idea where my hostess`s room was,  I resolved to go and seek her.`

` I knocked at the door I believed to be hers, and heard a voice say " come in ",  and gladly I entered.  She persauded me to return to my room,  but on going there,  the smell was so bad I could not remain.  I therefore shared her room for the night

   ` Next day I asked Miss Currie,  Mrs Wilder`s sister, if the room was haunted, and she said yes,  that stories were told that cries were heard,  and that a little child came and stared as one knelt at prayers.

One of the girls of the Hawes family was very lovely;  but was destroyed by her lover,  a colonel in the army.  In that room ,  her child was born --  and murdered;  the body being concealed in a cupboard.  The cries are from the baby,  answered by low moans from the wretched mother.

`  When the room was whitewashed in 1890,  a blocked up window was found where the cupboard had been,  showing this and the next room were once all in one and were probably the drawing room.  Nothing was found in the window.

`  Of the Hawes family,  little is known , except that they bought the property from the Hydes and changed the name from Hydes Hall to Purley hall.  They lost a lot of money in the  South Sea Speculations,  and only managed to keep the house by letting it to a tenant.

` In 1770 it was bought by Dr Wilder of Nunhide from Francis Hawes ,  a linen draper of Cheapside.  Of the womankind of the Hawes family,  nothing is known,  but in Purley church there is a tablet to Elizabeth Hawes.

` I was there when someone asked Mrs Wilder  "  Is not Purley Hall haunted ?"  Mrs Wilder did not like that at all;  and they hastily dropped the subject.`

It seems that one of the Hawes family`s tenants was Warren Hastings,  the first Governor-General of India,  and he returned to live there for some years after Dr Wilder bought the property.  Like so many others in the world of politics,  Hastings had made enemies,  and in 1788 was impeached in the House of Commons.   He retired to Purley to put together his defence against accusations that could have sent him to the scaffold,  and after a lengthy trial, was aquitted.  He died a vindicated man at the age of 86.

Hastings` ghost was seen often in the house,  which had aquired such an oppresive atmosphere that the people who lived there in the 1960s arranged a service of exorcism.  They were delighted with its success,  and reported that the atmosphere had changed completely,  and although Hastings` ghost was still seen ,  it left a friendly and happy impression.

Ghosts of Berkshire by Ian McLoughlin.

 

                                      

                                                           PURLEY HALL